On board.

May 6, the start of our expedition. Our staff scientist, Tobias Hoefig, picked us and the other scientists up at the hotel in Auckland and brought us to the Freyberg Wharf B in the Port of Auckland. Here, the Drilling Vessel (DV) JOIDES Resolution is currently docked and all the supplies are being re-stocked. We spent the first day with touring the ship and getting familiar with all the important safety features and procedures. We were introduced to each other and moved into our shared cabins. After some rain in the morning, the weather turned really nice and some of us went for a run outside of the port … enjoying the amenities of land as long as we can. We will spend 8 weeks at sea and hopefully the treadmills in the gym won’t break down! Many visitor groups were touring the ship and we had the afternoon off. One of the last few chances to go to a pub or do some shopping before transit to our first drilling location starts on Wednesday.

Today we will proceed with the science introduction. That means we will talk about the specific objectives of our expedition to Brothers Volcano and all the personal research planned by the individual scientists. International collaborations and sharing the sample material will be required since we expect a low recovery due to drilling in such a challenging environment.